He destroyed his ankle in a motorcycle accident. He was one of the first people to do a big worm, which is of interest to me because I learned the trick after reading an interview with him. He did some sick moby dicks and whirly fives as well. Later, BCP Mike

yep, dean is still around coaching in south florida, i saw shannon best at rixen last year, and actually i saw jeremy kovak at dean's..."why would i grab the board if it is already attached to my feet"

MJW, Actually Shannon Best started out as a wakeboarder on the cable- Go WAY back into the video collection and pop in Spray- You'll see him tearing it on a cable (many of you have probably never seen Spray...) He also ripped behind a boat. He had some sick sequences in WBM behind both the boat and cable... He may be kiteboarding now but if we're talking about blasts from the past you can check back and see that he was a wakeboarder first...

It seems like some people didn't like Tara because she dominated woman's wakeboarding for a long time. These are probably the same people that don't like Dallas Friday for the same reason. When you're on top, there are some people who aren't going to route for you no matter what just because they like to see people on top fail.

Eubanks, true... Another part of it had nothing to do with Tara, it was simply because she was from West Palm and affiliated with Darin. At that time, there was animosity between some of the core Orlando crew, (some of whom would form the "new crew," others would move out to Picket and form that crew, then later Gator boards, The Projects, etc.) versus the West Palm crew (Darin, Best, others). Anyway, some of the Orlando guys liked to talk smack about Darin and at that time he was not respected for his style, so then Tara was perceived as being in with Darin. I met her and did some work with her during that time and found her to be rather shy, quiet and humble. I never heard her talk badly about anybody, just let her riding speak for itself, but unfortunately many of the girls on tour were catty and did what catty girls do. Most of those girls now are gone from the scene. I was really stoked for Tara when she staged a sort of "comeback," I believe summer before last, and made the podium a number of times.

And yes, Tara was the "Dallas" of her era. Most days nobody could touch her in a competition format. It wasn't until Emily came on the scene a few years later that somebody could really provide Tara with some consistent competition.

Haven't heard from Jaime in a while, but she was a good student, and even when she was on tour, she appeared conflicted whether to really go for it in the wakeboarding industry versus focus more on the studies and go that path. With Gregg, it was much more obvious what he wanted to do. It is very unusual to do both school and pro wakeboarding at the same time and do them both well. Brannon J. pulled it off as well as anybody, which is how this thread got started in a sense.